There’s been a lot of talk on the threads this week about trolls and what should be done about them.
I think Cole’s rules have always been pretty clear. The banhammer (temporary or otherwise) only comes out for egregiously bad behaviour – actual physical or emotional threats, truly offensive -isms, 9/11 truthers and the like. In such instances, one or more of the front pagers contact Cole (who has, I note for those who complain that Cole never reads his own blog, usually already seen it) and Cole decides if they get banned.
The front pagers might very occasionally delete comments which are highly offensive or gratuitously derailing of a thread which has nothing to do with the shit they are spouting, but otherwise, you’re all adults and you can deal with a few dickheads yourselves.
Speaking for myself only, I kind of like the trolls – be they one note weirdos, Republican ratfuckers, ex-PUMAs for Trump, or just DougJ in a new hat. They are an integral part of this blog’s history – from Doug trolling Republican Cole, through Brick Oven Bob Bill (if you don’t know who he was, I suggest you google), to Mikey the Goatfucker, the helicopters are not laughing guy, Uncle Clarence Thomas, Unlimited Corporate Cash, and that guy I managed to flirt out of existence in one thread after he resorted to copying the entire thread into successive comments in an attempt to crash the blog.*
More to the point – it’s election season. There are going to be trolls, and trolls in increasing numbers until we get to November. If we banned everyone who said something stupid in the next 5 months, the blog would consist entirely of posts from Tom and Richard on which none of you fuckers would be allowed to comment.
Also to remember – just because someone disagrees with you, even to the point of complete exasperation, that doesn’t necessarily make them a troll. Or mean that they should be banned to preserve your delicate sensibilities.
If you really hate trolls, ignore them, or install one of the filters that some kind person will link to below a few comments in, or send them pancake recipes, or read one of the other threads.
Anyway, I’m listening to Grimes this weekend (a long weekend here in Sydney). What are you listening to?
* If anyone knows when that thread was, I’d love to read it again. That was fun.
redshirt
Heh. Great post.
I like trolls too.
Some might even call me a troll. I don’t know why or how, but it’s possible.
MomSense
There is a graduation party in the next neighborhood just through my back woods so I’m listening to their dance party.
redshirt
Also, here’s a Pixies link with lyrics.
Omnes Omnibus
QFT Now, some P.J Harvey.
Felonius Monk
How about the late Willy Deville — Heaven Stood Still
Mary G
Wasn’t there a troll talking about helicopters and a credenza? I remember laughing almost to the point of breathlessness.
redshirt
Evolution rock! I Come from the Water.
Gin & Tonic
Is this the NBA thread in disguise?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: No.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: Yes, there was. The helicopters were not laughing and he was ready to fax his credenza/credentials to Cole.
trollhattan
Please don’t ask me why I remember this, it was Brick Oven Bill. He was an actual, not merely electronic, stalker and proudly so. Those were the days, my friends.
amk
it’s a bug or a feature?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Mary G:
Linked above for your delectation.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Yes.
Why not?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
redshirt
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Helicopters don’t make jokes, it’s true.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: So, yeah, I know Cole doesn’t give a shit about hoops. I’m neither asking for nor expecting a thread, just busting chops.
Miss Bianca
All-female Finnish metal band:
Scissor, Paper, Rock
Of course, the “misheard lyric” version of this one has had a lot more hits – go figure!
Major Major Major Major
@redshirt: death is the ultimate troll. in the end, we’re all trolled. and doesn’t that mean, in the end, we’re all trolls? it really makes you think.
Waldo
Meanwhile, on Seth Meyers, a band that will soon be a household name …
MomSense
My kid had to do a big project on Egypt for school so I introduced him to this song by Josh Ritter.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Gin & Tonic:
Happy threading…
redshirt
@Major Major Major Major: Life is troll.
Bobby Thomson
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: this is why I hate the nuking of unlimited corporate cash’s comments. His idiocy should be preserved.
Major Major Major Major
@Waldo: why, we all about to get food poisoning?
Felonius Monk
@Waldo: Diarrhea Planet? Really? Sounds more like Donald Dump and the Trots.
JCJ
I’ll try again.
Why no love for Unkel Klarunce Th0mas?
(I spelled it properly at first but it got nuked)
chopper
they’ll never top BIRDZILLA.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@JCJ:
I’d forgotten about him. Thanks for the reminder.
Major Major Major Major
Whatever happened to mc rhymes with Darren? I remember the night he got time out…
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: “Made you think. Nyah-nyah.”
burnspbesq
The case/lang/viets album is available for preview at NPR First Listen.
Eric U.
I like the trolling by Rising Ben, but he can’t behave himself and eventually goes past what is acceptable. Too bad. Maybe he does it because he realizes we are being entertained
Mnemosyne
Troll who was banned for being racist is back in the thread below being racist.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Mnemosyne:
Which thread?
Mnemosyne
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Never mind, I went back to check and Adam squished him, so problem solved.
Kristine Smith
Current fave song: “Fire” by Barns Courtney.
His song “Glitter & Gold” is good, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnka7iod6C4
benw
Music thread, huh?
This is pretty good.
redshirt
Walking on Sunshine, yeah.
ruemara
I’m not fond of trolls, mostly cos they’re not very clever. Boring. But they are fun to bat around when I have the mood come on. Funny, my phone nearly autocompleted the first sentence as “fond of Catullus” which is true, but odd of it to save.
Mnemosyne
HBO is re-running their movie “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” about Ali’s Supreme Court case. It’s a little odd because there is no actor playing Ali. It’s all archive footage. But it also makes sense, because it’s all about the machinations inside the Supreme Court, and defendants never appear there.
Major Major Major Major
My friend notes that “Reinhold ‘Reince’ Priebus” is an anagram of “irreducible heron penis”.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@ruemara:
The quality of troll at the moment is seriously lacking. None of them have the pure nutty genius of their belovehated forebears listed above.
ruemara
I got to listen to the new ABC album, which sounded like old ABC which is fine by me. With this fancy car, I have a CD player so all the old CDs are getting played. Today was pre-punk. Forgot how much I liked T-Rex’s Calling All Destroyers.
I’m hanging out in a kava bar because I didn’t feel like sitting at home alone. But they’ve filled the normally mellow space with black lights, disco & fog. Mellow night out ruined. It takes years for me to do this type of thing.
Miss Bianca
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: OMG, I’d forgotten about the “helicopters aren’t laughing” guy. Thanks (?) for the trip down memory lane.
different-church-lady
You call them “trolls.” I call them “cat toys.”
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: I wouldn’t have mentioned this otherwise, but there’s a somewhat on-topic post at Language Log on euphemisms for the organ in question. It’s noted in the comments that an assiduous researcher found about 1400.
Adam L Silverman
@Bobby Thomson: He was nuked because he or she used a slur for transgendered people to refer to the non-transgendered African American woman that prepped the lectern for Secretary Clinton on Tuesday night. That is over the line and that’s why I put him, or her, in time out.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Same person as Tuesday and Thursday and last night. All taken care of.
CaseyL
Trolls have been more or less welcome here since the Golden Age of DougJ. Some are tres amusant, like Laughing Helicopter Boy; some are just maddening. Hard to tell until they build up enough of a record for critical analysis.
I just hate the ones who derail entire threads into a dreary back and forth, when commenters try to actually engage with them.
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: It was the R-troll? It just can’t help transgressing.
shortribs
Facebook messenger and sites like reddit are inundated with spam and comment bots, I wouldn’t be surprised if some crafty campaign in the next few years gets caught pushing comment/troll bots on political blogs.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: have you read The Professor and the Madman? Speaking of lexicographers and organs.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I would love to pick your brain over what you find in the dustbin here some time. AL has my email if you’re interested. Wait, I guess you do too. Ha.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: Yep, same one. Tuesday night was way over the line. I know we have at least one transgender commenter here and she doesn’t need to have to wade through that type of thing.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: No, but I’d read ‘Caught in the Web of Words‘ several years before. Now apparently out-of-print, but an actual biography of James Murray.
Eric U.
@shortribs: I almost feel like R-troll could be a bot. Although the bots I’ve run into online have not been quite that good
danielx
Tulsa Yesterday…..Chris Robinson Brotherhood.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: honestly I almost never delete anything out of moderation, rather I approve it and it shows up as a comment. I’ve had to delete maybe half a dozen obvious spam emails – work from home and earn 8,000 a day, things like that. Then there’s the folks that don’t understand or realize that FYWP didn’t eat their comment, just stuck it in moderation and have reposted it, right into moderation, four or five times. Had that happen the other night. I cleared the first one, deleted the other three, and replied to the commenter explaining what was going on and that I had no idea what was forcing the comments into moderation. That’s usually it. Honestly, even the folks that are trolling, and lets be honest most of those folks are really semi-trolls, understand there are limits and don’t go over the line. Our friend this evening, and most nights this week since/including Tuesday, went way over it Tuesday and has gotten progressively worse every time he or she has reappeared. So there’s really not a lot to talk about.
Helen
Oh man, thanks for that Balloon Boy thread link. I just read the whole thing and it was an hour well spent. I cried laughing at least a half dozen times.
Petorado
I think Sarah would appreciate Brinks trucks backing up with Nimmo.
Sometimes trolls and music can result in a happy ending.
Origuy
Am I the only one who gets these autoplay ads? I thought they might stop after the CA primary, but now they’re selling McDonalds. And yes, I know how to disable Flash in Chrome, but that’s a pain since it breaks streaming from Comcast.
MattF
@Origuy: I get auto-audio once in a while. It’s annoying, but easy to turn off.
burnspbesq
The Berniacs are convinced that the uncounted ballots in CA going to save Bernie. They’re going to be disappointed. Around 40 percent of the uncounted ballots are from two counties (LA and SD) where Clinton kicked ass.
benw
@redshirt: I love that song, but why link to that one in particular?
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Now I’ll never get a Pulitzer for my 10,000-word exposĂ© “Under the Hood of an Almost Top 10,000 Blog.” Humph.
Adam L Silverman
@Origuy: have you tried the adblocker extension in chrome?
MattF
@burnspbesq: I’ll take it for granted that they haven’t actually explained how saving Bernie would happen. In the real world, that is to say.
Omnes Omnibus
Where is the fucking music? I was gone for a while, I had an excuse, I have a life. Have this.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Sorry to disappoint. At my previous locale all comments were moderated. I had some significant issues with a lot of the stuff that was approved/the rules for what was and was not acceptable. But it wasn’t my site, so I had to live with the rules.
burnspbesq
@MattF:
Here is the Secretary of State’s list of unprocessed ballots by county. Map this to the results from Tuesday and you’re right, it becomes very difficult to find a way for Sanders to overcome a half-million-vote deficit.
http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/statewide-elections/2016-primary/unprocessed-ballots-report.pdf
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Adam L Silverman:
What he said.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: “I had an excuse, I have a life”? Sheesh. Fine, Kid Babylon – here.
benw
@Omnes Omnibus: love the scratching on that record.
Petorado
@Omnes Omnibus: Going for the more melodic old skool.
shortribs
@Eric U.:
They’re getting better. A few bots on reddit that will scan a thread and generate natural sounding comments based on the conversations that are being upvoted. Difficult to detect unless they’re a known bot or they slip up and duplicate a phrase in two separate comments under different nyms.
burnspbesq
And here is the map from Tuesday.
http://graphics.latimes.com/election-2016-california-results/
Major Major Major Major
@shortribs: So what you’re saying is that they’re not INVINCIBLE FIREHOSES ah, crap, I just gave away the game.
pseudonymous in nc
Honestly, I think Right To Shite and its various incarnations should get a little bit of play, then a block, because it TBoggs a thread, and it’s not at all creative about how it does so. If it had new material, then perhaps there’d be a case for it, but it’s fucking Gary Ruppert from Sadly, No! c. 2003 and I’m sort of bored with those reindeer games.
cokane
The word troll has just become devoid of any significant meaning
MomSense
This one is for the kids celebrating their graduation and about to spend their summers in their parents’ basements.
Mary G
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Thanks for the link, SP&T. Litlebritdifrt was on fire that night. Here is some epic troll trolling:
Wag
Here’s a tune about sex. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kVCklwndx6c
And another by the same band
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e6JD14RkJQs
HSR was really good
Carl W
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve read it. A really fun book. Sadder in places than the books I usually read, but that’s what you get with nonfiction :)
Have you read the author’s other book about the OED (_The Meaning of Everything_)? I have it, but haven’t read it yet.
RadioOne
I guarantee that I will say something extremely stupid on this blog within the next five months because of the drama of the general election. It’s just how I roll.
Bobby Thomson
@Adam L Silverman: fair enough, but yiu deleted ALL of his comments.
Captain C
@burnspbesq: On my Facebook feed today someone posted an article which claimed that 12 million CA primary votes (presumably all for Bernie) were going deliberately uncounted. As in 2/3 to 3/4 of the ostensible vote. At this point, all I can do is roll my eyes and move on.
Johnny Coelacanth
I tried to get into that Grimes album, but could not. It had enjoyable bits and pieces, but they fit together in a weird way. It was like a hot blueberry and prime rib salad.
Nick Loopin' Lopez
@RadioOne: Bonus points for working in a rhetorical question involving an unamused helicopter.
TheMightyTrowel
Hee hee trolls of years gone by… I’m listening to obnoxiously rowdy australian ska pop punk this weekend. Going to see these guys live when they come thru my city in a few weeks!
https://youtu.be/6hgpiGUcjZg
ETA this song makes my cats run around like the lunatic motherfng party machines they are
Craigo
@burnspbesq: Clinton has won the ballots counted in the last 24 hours by about 55-45 – nearly the same margin as before.
NotMax
Don’t mind what are usually referred to as trolls, generally speaking.
Do mind those who insist on hijacking thread after thread.
Do mind those who repeat essentially the same thing over and over and over, ad nauseum, sometimes for days on end.
Do mind the profusion of all caps and exclamations some seem to believe is effective conversation.
Loathe the ones who shift into bilious and insulting without cause (all too often confusing raw nastiness for snark) or from the get-go, and (of course) also the obvious bigots of various stripes.
Never shall understand the jollies gotten by posing as one or more trolls. The so-called humor of the whole DougJ shtick escapes me entirely.
Jewish Steel
Pouring one out for Bob Loblaw.
And shuddering at the memory of Timmeh.
Steeplejack
Listening to some quiet jazz before going to bed. Miles Davis, âGĂ©nĂ©rique.â
catbirdman
I’m listening to Charles Ramsey’s classic, Dead Giveaway!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZcRU0Op5P4
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Coming home today, I passed three graduation parties. People, parties don’t mean that you can just Park your car in the middle of the street, cause they’ve run out of parking spaces.
burnspbesq
One of these years, I’m going to get organized and go to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but this will suffice for now.
https://huckfinn.com
Mobil RoonieRoo
This is the only blog where I actually enjoy the trolls.
Wormtown
@Major Major Major Major: that is pretty deep………..I am serious
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: After that R-troll started diversifying a bit: started using nyms that began with other letters, and even did about a day of pretend-liberal concern trolling as “Ben”, which was probably the most successful trolling they’d done so far.
Andy
@Bobby Thomson: –That’s Adam for ya!
Taiko
@Wag: I still have their 1st album, in pristine condition. I don’t think they were much known outside of New England though, were they? One more by them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RShAxvg5MJE